The 4th Infantry Division landed on Utah Beach on June 6, 1944, the 8th Infantry Regiment leading the assault against comparatively light resistance. The 8th Infantry linked up with isolated paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division near Sainte-Mère-Église on June 7 and helped beat back German counterattacks as the division drove north up the Cotentin Peninsula. The 22nd Infantry Regiment took the Azeville fort and Ozeville on June 9 with naval gunfire support, and by June 21 the division had reached Cherbourg's main defensive belt. The 12th Infantry Regiment, reinforced by tanks, breached the fortress-city on June 22, and it was secured by the end of the month. The division then returned south to the general offensive, attacking toward Périers and participating in the COBRA breakout on July 25 before entering Paris with French army units on August 25.
Advancing to the German frontier, the division penetrated the West Wall in the Schnee Eifel in September 1944 before being committed to the Hürtgen Forest that autumn. On November 10, the 12th Infantry came under a German counterattack that cut off elements of the regiment for five days. Costly attacks over the following weeks gained little ground — during five particularly brutal days the division advanced only a mile and a half — and the 22nd Infantry Regiment finally took Grosshau by frontal assault before the division was relieved on December 3.
Moving to Luxembourg, the division was struck by the Ardennes offensive on December 16. In Luxembourg, the division held around Dickweiler, Osweiler, and Echternach, helping form the southern anchor against the German counteroffensive. In early 1945 the division returned to the offensive, crossed the Rhine at Worms in March, and continued through Bavaria toward southern Germany. Its campaign carried the Ivy Division from Utah Beach through the forests of Germany to the final weeks of the war in Europe.
(A) = attached
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